


Do What You Do

by stickmarionette



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always the Opposite Sex, Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, F/M, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 21:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickmarionette/pseuds/stickmarionette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Her hands looked massive in the keeper's gloves, swallowing Andres' completely. They shook, she grinned, and Andres felt it go through him like lightning. Her face was not at all forbidding, then.</i>
</p>
<p> Andres' high school football team needs a keeper. Victoria Valdes is a force of nature who happens to play in goal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do What You Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meretricula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretricula/gifts).



> Written for the prompt [here](http://touchline.livejournal.com/727.html?thread=506071#t506071), for meretricula for [sant jordi](http://ladiadadesantjordi.dreamwidth.org/3166.html).

" - so then Albert dived on top of him, and now Albert has an ankle problem," Andres finished glumly.

Beside him, Anna winced. "Ouch. Poor bastard."

It was a beautiful day, and he was sincerely glad that Anna had insisted on dragging him out (because, in her words, _there are other outdoor pursuits besides football, you know_ ), but not quite grateful enough to stop obsessing about the reason he wasn't currently running around on the field behind their high school, probably losing badly to the team from the school down the road.

"Yeah. It'll be a while before he can play again. Mister Garcia's away for the next month, too - we're on our own."

"Let me get this straight. You don't have a coach or a goalkeeper."

Andres nodded glumly.

"I can't help you with the first problem. About the keeper..." Anna's eyes got the scary gleam that meant she was scheming. There were quite a lot of people at their school who would back away at that look, but Andres wasn't one of them. At least with her on the problem, the solution would be creative. "I've got an idea. You might not like it, though."

"I like all your ideas," Andres replied. "Why not this one?"

Anna hesitated. "Well...this person's really good. I mean, amazing. But she's a girl."

"That - that's not a problem," Andres said quickly. In theory, there weren't any rules preventing girls from joining the teams that made up the local high school league. In practice, Andres had rarely seen any girls on opposition teams, and their team was all male. Anna was fully entitled to her skeptical expression, all the more since she knew most of the guys on the team. "You know how desperate we are."

"You sure? For you, maybe it's not a problem. What about the other guys? Plus, I've heard this girl's hard to get along with. She doesn't have that many friends. Only reason I know her is because I did an article on her for the school paper a few weeks ago."

Most people looked at Andres and saw a pale, skinny kid who was too shy to function, and he was happy to keep it that way. He was quiet and studious and he got along with everybody, no matter what kind of reputation they had. Anna sometimes teased him for being an expert on making difficult friends. 

There was no trick to it, not as far as he could see. Just sheer bloody-minded stubbornness.

Andres shrugged easily. "I don't care. Not if she's really that good." 

"And that, Andresito, is why I'm friends with you," Anna said, beaming like he'd just made her day. "Okay, I'll tell her to come to your next practice."

 

*

 

Anna was as good as her word. Victoria Valdes showed up at their next after school practice. She had very short, thick black hair that stood up in spikes and a fierce scowl that drew attention to her bushy eyebrows. A metallic stud in the shape of the FC Barcelona logo glinted at her left earlobe. There was a tattoo of a dragon on her right arm, up where it would be almost entirely hidden under t-shirt sleeves.

Andres met her direct gaze with an effort. "Are you Victoria?"

"Sure am. You're Anna's friend?" 

"Yeah. I'm Andres. Nice to meet you."

Her hands looked massive in the keeper's gloves, swallowing Andres' completely. They shook, she grinned, and Andres felt it go through him like lightning. Her face was not at all forbidding, then.

"Anna told me about you. Thanks for giving me a chance. Who's in charge?"

"I'm the captain," Tomas said, coming up from behind Andres and puffing out his chest. "Tomas. Who're you?"

Victoria squared her shoulders. In her tank top and shorts, she looked like the kind of athlete who'd be on a poster, like she'd dominate a goal mouth just by standing in it. "I'm your new goalie."

Silence. 

The rest of the team had come up to join them by now, and there were far too many incredulous looks being directed Victoria's way. Andres felt an uncomfortable shiver of guilt for not specifying earlier that the replacement keeper he'd found was...not quite like the one they had before. He was still trying to figure out what to say to defuse the situation when Tomas regained the ability to speak.

"Are you serious? Come on, everyone knows girls can't catch." He looked around, clearly expecting big laughs at his own cleverness, and frowned when there were only a few titters.

For his part, Andres was just relieved that the rest of his team seemed to have decent survival instincts. Even if he had found the comment funny, he would have been too intimidated by the look on Victoria's face to laugh.

Victoria's full lips drew up into a smirk. "Try it. Go on, all of you. See if you can score past me."

 

*

 

The first few guys took it easy, going for placement over power, and more often than not getting it horribly wrong. Jorge miscued his shot so badly that by the time it reached Victoria it was barely travelling, and she mimed falling asleep before she smothered it with absolute confidence.

That one made everyone laugh until they were out of breath, and those who still had to shoot began to take it seriously. Still, no one got past Victoria. 

She had the fastest reflexes Andres had ever seen. It was incredible.

"Ooookay." Tomas whistled through his teeth. He sounded reluctantly impressed, and there was a speculative expression on his face that Andres wasn't sure he liked. "I take it back, you're not terrible. Ghostface!"

Andres jerked. "What?"

"You try."

Victoria gave him a slow, disdainful once-over as he walked up to place the ball. "Why, what's so special about him?"

"He's good. Like a Spanish Laudrup!" Santi shouted, from his perch in the middle of the crowd of those who had already failed to beat Victoria from 15 meters. "Show her, Ghostface!"

"Not that good at scoring," Andres mumbled. His face felt like it was on fire.

His shot was perfect, curling, dipping at the last moment towards the top corner - 

Where Victoria batted it away at the last possible moment with a spectacular leap.

The silence this time had a different quality. It was broken by Tomas laughing like a madman. "Fuck it, you're in!"

Victoria nodded like she'd expected nothing less. When Andres met her eyes, though, she grinned, and Andres grinned back.

 

*

 

The week after that, they won their first game 1-0 on a flooded potato patch of a field, with Victoria making about a dozen brilliant saves and Tomas heading in the only goal from a scrappy corner.

It served the other team right for all the crap they'd sprouted from the moment they saw they'd be playing against a girl. Some of it had made Andres' ears burn, and he hoped Victoria had been too far from the action to catch most of it. If she had heard, she gave no indication at all.

At the end of the game, Tomas rushed up to her, checking himself just before he would have pounced on Albert, if he'd been the one who gave that kind of performance. "Hey, well done! I was gonna hug you but - do you hug?"

"I dunno, you don't exactly smell great right now," Victoria said, deadpan. "Yeah, go on. That's you too, Andres. Don't lurk, come here. Great assist."

Andres really had to master this blushing habit. It was getting out of hand. "Thanks."

He was muddy and cold and Victoria's broad hand on his back felt amazing.

 

*

 

Victoria conceded a penalty with a reckless dive at the feet of the opposition striker in their next game, and then managed to save it, which helped them get a scoreless draw, since none of them could score to save their lives. 

The only silver lining that day was the sight of Tomas almost spontaneously combusting out of frustration as he yelled at Jorge, Santi, and Jordi, the three forwards, for being wasteful. The rest of the team watched and giggled nervously; Victoria laughed so hard she had to lean on Andres for support.

 

*

 

The week after that, Albert tried to tell Tomas that he was well enough to play (he probably wasn't). 

Tomas told him that he'd been demoted to the bench because, "didn't anyone tell you? We've got this weird, scary girl. She's like Buffon with boobs. You're welcome to try and take your place back. But that's what you're up against."

 

*

 

It was all going too well. Andres should have known it couldn't last. They were changing in the locker room after practice the week after Albert showed up when Jorge sidled up to Tomas, who'd been sitting opposite Andres.

"Got a bone to pick with you, cap. Why don't you give Albert his place back?"

"Because Albert's not very good," Tomas said flatly. "Jorge, you know that, why are you even asking?"

Jorge went bright red with indignation. "The sooner it can go back to the old days, the better. It's no good having a girl around." 

"You're just saying that because she wouldn't give you the time of day," Tomas muttered, and Andres had to suppress a wince. That was probably a little too perceptive. He'd seen Jorge sticking to Victoria after practice a lot recently. Maybe something had happened.

"She's probably a dyke anyway," Jorge said. Not very loudly, but somehow it cut through the chatter, and suddenly Andres found himself standing.

"Shut up," he said in a hoarse, shaking voice.

Jorge's head snapped up. He looked surprised - whether it was being rebuked, or being told that by quiet little Andres, it was hard to tell. "What was that, Ghostface?"

"Don't talk about Victoria like that."

Jorge whistled. "Oooh, hit a nerve, did we? Come on, you're just saying that because you want to bang her."

Andres felt himself go red. "That doesn't matter. She's a team mate. You shouldn't use that word."

"What, are you going to make me? Victoria's a big ugly dyke," Jorge said in a sing-song voice.

The world went red around the edges.

 

*

 

Later, Santi would tell him, with a freaked out, awed expression, that he'd gotten in one good punch before anybody could react, and that he didn't even seem to notice when Jorge - who was almost a head taller and much heavier - shoved him into the lockers. It had taken almost the entire team to separate them, and then Tomas had gone and got Victoria.

All Andres knew was that when he came back to his senses, he was sitting in the sports equipment room, and Victoria was there too, towering over him and frowning at the sorry state of his hand.

"You didn't have to do that," she said evenly. She looked kind of mad.

"I know," Andres croaked. He cleared his throat. "I didn't mean - "

"I can take care of myself."

"I know you can, believe me. It's just - "

He didn't know what he looked like just then. Whatever it was, it finally made Victoria's eyes soften. She sighed. "What?"

Andres tried and failed to find the right words to describe what he'd felt. "What they were saying, that's an awful word to use for - I had to do something," he said finally, defeated.

To his surprise, Victoria's lips twitched in amusement, and then she was grinning, and he was once again left cursing his complexion. He had to be red as a tomato by now.

"Okay. Show me how you did it. Hold out your fist."

"Uh - like this. Why?"

"See, you tucked your thumb in. That's why it hurt so much. Next time, remember to form a fist properly before you punch. I'll show you."

Her hands were huge and warm, and he could feel the calluses robbing against his fingers. It took him a moment to remember that speaking was a thing he might be expected to do.

"Oh. Thanks."

Victoria bumped his fist with hers. "Nah. Thank you."

 

*

 

Tomas came and got them a while later. It was hard to tell how much time had passed. Andres had inadvertently started a conversation about goalkeeping styles that turned into an in-depth discussion of Barcelona's fortunes this season, and they could have been talking for minutes or hours.

"So, uh. We've kicked Jorge off the team."

Victoria raised her eyebrows. "Really. What for?"

"He was bad for team spirit," Tomas said, completely deadpan. He broke into a grin when Victoria elbowed him in the side. "Honestly? You and Andres are our best players. It was a pretty easy call to make."

 

*

 

A month later, they were playing a team from across the city, who were so good they'd nicknamed themselves the Vultures and managed to carry it off. The last time they met Albert had done his ankle, and they'd lost 5-1.

Thirty minutes into the game, Tomas managed to get the ball off them in midfield and feed Andres, who was hovering just outside the box.

For Andres, football had always been natural. When the ball came to his feet, he always knew exactly what he was going to do with it. This time was no different. He took it down with a touch, accelerated past a defender, went around another one, rode a wild scything tackle, and lashed it past the goalkeeper.

The next thing he knew, he was being mobbed by the rest of the team, borne down to the ground and hugged within an inch of his life. When he got up, it was to see Victoria giving him the thumbs up from her post in goal.

Victoria was having a great game, even by her standards. She'd let one in within five minutes when their offside trap failed spectacularly, but it had been a hopeless ball, and she'd stopped everything else that came at her, all the while screaming instructions at the defenders in front of her, all of whom had learned by now that it was best just to listen.

All in all, it was going pretty well.

Then one of the Vultures slide in hard on Tomas. Andres was on the other side of the pitch, and even he immediately knew something awful had happened, and that he had to get over there. 

The first person to Tomas was Victoria, who was hovering protectively, keeping the outraged members of the Vultures away from his prone body. Andres got there just in time to see her glowering at one of them - Lopez, that was his name. "Back off. Can't you see he's hurt?"

Lopez sneered. "I didn't even touch him, and he's down there, squealing like a girl. Must be catching."

Victoria's eyes narrowed, and the next thing Andres knew Lopez was down on the ground, clutching his nose and screaming while Victoria towered over him. She looked very serious.

"I hit like a girl too. Maybe now you get what that actually means."

 

*

 

The brawl that broke out after that effectively ended the game. Not that any of Andres' team-mates minded - most of them seemed impressed by Victoria's staunch defense of the captain, and already the story of her putting Lopez on the ground with one punch was gaining wings. Within a few days, the entire school would probably be telling each other an extremely exaggerated version of what had happened.

It took Victoria a while to escape the endless round of back-pats and high-fives. When she did, it was to check on Tomas, whose ankle had swelled up, and who was subjecting Andres to a steady stream of curses and complaints about _those fucking bastards_.

"If you can swear like that, you're doing okay," Victoria said with a relieved sigh, grinning when Tomas gave her the finger in response. "Hey, cap. Hey, Andres."

"You were great," Andres said quietly, not looking at her.

Victoria grinned. "I know, what a punch."

"No, I meant - "

"Dummy, I know what you meant. Come walk with me."

Andres glanced at Tomas, who had stopped whining and was giving them a speculative, intrigued look. "Yeah, go on. I'll be okay. Jordi's driving me to the clinic."

He said _good luck_ in a very loud, exaggerated whisper as Andres got up, which would have warranted at least an elbow to the ribs if he wasn't already injured. Instead, Andres tried valiantly to keep himself from blushing and looked away from the amused glint in Victoria's eyes.

She didn't say anything until they were out on the dark and empty pitch, standing behind what had been her goal in the first half.

"That goal was brilliant. You know, at first I thought Santi was talking out of his ass with that Laudrup comparison, but he was right. You're amazing."

Now how was he supposed to stop blushing and stammering? Andres took a deep breath and gathered up all his courage, like he was making a run for goal again. "Thank you. Do you - that is, I was thinking - "

"Let's go to the park on Saturday," Victoria said decisively. Even in the dim light, her smile was radiant.

It took Andres a moment to process what she'd said. "Yes! Um, I mean. I'd be happy to."

 

*

 

Their possibly-probably-not-a-date at the park had an unpromising beginning.

"What happened to your hair?" Victoria said, sounding genuinely curious. She was dressed in a black replica Barca goalie's jersey and jeans and looked great. Andres...well. Andres had a hair cut that was his normal length on top and a buzz-cut on the sides.

He ducked his head. "My sister's studying to be a hair-dresser. I let her practice on me."

It took Victoria a moment to school her expression. "Oh. It's - uh. Nice."

Andres gave her a disbelieving look until she cracked and broke into a sheepish grin. 

"Okay, it's gonna take some getting used to, but it's not awful. Seriously."

"Thanks," Andres mumbled.

"What for? You wanna get ice cream?"

 

*

 

They found a bench under the shade of a large, twisting tree and sat down to finish their ice cream in a surprisingly comfortable silence. When he was done, Andres stared at his knuckles, trying to work up the nerve to speak.

"Can I tell you something?"

Something in his voice caught her attention. She sat up straighter and turned to face him, all serious focus. "Sure. Shoot."

"Last year, I had a crush on a guy. Xavi. He used to play with us," Andres whispered, all in a rush. "He was amazing, and so smart. I just followed him everywhere."

It felt good to finally say it out loud, when he hadn't ever really thought about it in those terms before. Not at the time, anyway.

"What happened?"

"He went to _La Masia_ ," Andres replied, and knew that he was beaming with pride.

Victoria's jaw dropped. "Oh wow. That good?"

"Yeah," Andres said ruefully. "I never had a chance."

Victoria went quiet and thoughtful for a moment. When she looked back at him again, she was grinning. "You know, I appreciate it, but you didn't have to tell me that out of some weird sense of solidarity."

"I was just - "

"Don't tell me it wasn't that."

"Okay. But it wasn't just that," Andres said. The words rang true when he said them, and it was a relief to know that he'd been honest to himself. At the very least, he'd always tried to be that. "I wanted you to know something about me that no one else knows."

Victoria draped her arm around his shoulder and leaned in, close enough that he could feel her breath against his ear when she spoke. "I should tell you a secret too. Then we're even."

"You don't have to," Andres said. 

"I want to. Andres, look at me." 

His throat was dry, and all he could see was her smile, growing brighter when he let himself look her in the eye.

"I like boys too," Victoria said, and he had to look away, afraid that the hope that had fluttered to life in his chest was showing on his face.

"Oh. I wasn't - I didn't want to assume anything."

Victoria laughed. He'd always liked the way she did that - it was never mean, and she always sounded like she meant it. "Andres Iniesta, you are unreal. As of right now, you have my permission to assume."

"Do you - like anyone?"

"Yeah, I guess. I think he likes me too. He's just too scared to admit it." 

Her hand felt huge and warm on the back of his neck. Andres had to clear his throat before he could speak. "I think you're right."

"Of course I am, dummy," Victoria said, and pressed her lips against his. They felt soft, a little chapped because she could never be bothered with lip balm or gloss of any kind, and Andres' heart felt like it was going to leap out of his rib cage.

If he spent a moment just looking at her with a poleaxed expression on his face after she pulled back, no one could blame him. 

"Hey. What's with that face?"

Andres shook himself. For once, he knew exactly what to say. "You're the best surprise I've ever had."

  
_Oh, and the ones who taught you how to live/Oh, they know no more than you  
So if you trust what's in your heart/Oh, what better can you do  
Than if you do what you do/Yeah, you'll do fine_  
\- Noah and the Whale - Do What You Do

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The Anna in the first scene is Anna Ortiz, Andres' fierce and fantastic real life fiancée and baby mama.
> 
> 2\. Andres Iniesta does have quite a gift for befriending people with unfriendly reputations. Just ask Samuel Eto'o.
> 
> 3\. Michael Laudrup, one of the stars of Barca's Dream Team, is one of Andres' childhood idols. (The other one being Pep Guardiola, of course.)
> 
> 4\. The story about Andres' sister is true, at least according to the Catalan media of a few years ago.
> 
> 5\. I've moved several of Victor's tattoos - a teenager would probably get in trouble at school for the very prominent ones on his forearms, and I'm not actually sure when Victor got his.
> 
> 6\. Title from Noah and the Whale's Do What You Do. My dear meretricula, I hope this meets your approval.


End file.
